U.S. Pat. No. 4,797,698, issued on Jan. 10, 1989 in the names of Uenaka et al., discloses a film feeding apparatus for automatically feeding a negative film accommodated in a patrone to a developing machine. A multiplicity of magazines are piled one upon another with each magazine accommodating a patrone. The lowermost magazine is fed to a film receiving port of the developing machine. This magazine is retracted from the film receiving port so as to be discharged after the feed of the film has been completed. Consequently, the magazines are successively moved, and the films are thereby automatically fed to the developing machine.
The Uenaka reference is representative of film feeding apparatus which feed the lead end of a film first into a photo finishing machine. As discussed below, feeding a film leading end first into a photo finishing machine can cause problems when the film has taken on a core set due to being wound on a small core for an extended period of time.